Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to a fuel manufacturing apparatus, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for converting flammable material, such as waxed corrugated cardboard, into compact artificial firelogs or firestarter chips.
2. Description of the Background Art
The popularity of log burning fireplaces as an amenity and as a supplemental source of heat continues to grow. With cutting restrictions on Government land, as well as the closing of many wood processing plants, wood logs can be difficult and expensive to obtain. As a result, artificial firelogs, which generally burn cleaner and light faster, have been gaining in popularity.
On the other hand, boxes and containers made from cardboard are widely used in an almost infinite variety of applications such as packaging produce, shipping and storage of goods and the like. As such, there is an abundant supply of discarded cardboard boxes readily available for recycling. It has been recognized that discarded cardboard boxes form a potential fuel material, and the general concept of converting used or discarded cardboard boxes into burnable firelogs has been applied with some level of success.
Machines have been previously developed to convert such cardboard boxes into compact burnable firelogs. Such machines include a feed system, such as a hammermill for receiving a sheet of cardboard, a cutting mechanism for slicing the cardboard sheet into strips and then cutting the strips into chips, and a compacting/compressing punch press assembly for shaping the chips into compact firelog structures which can be burned in a fireplace. Binders, such as glue, are used to hold the chips together after compression. Additionally, the finished firelogs can be dipped into wax to create an outer wax coating to enhance their burn capability.
These existing machines, however, are designed to cut and shape plain cardboard boxes; that is, cardboard without a wax or wax-like coating thereon. Existing machines are not made to cut and shape waxed corrugated cardboard. Furthermore, the design of these machines does not take into account that, by using glue as a binder to hold regular unwaxed cardboard together into a compressed log, the corrugations are destroyed when the strips or chips are smashed and glued together. Quite significantly, we have found that regular and waxed corrugated cardboard has a memory and, while the corrugated segments stick together they are flattened and compressed, if glue is not used as a binder, upon heating the corrugated segments expand back into an open structure through which airflow is increased which leads to more efficient burning. Current fire log production machines are not able to make use of this memory property of corrugated cardboard.
It will be appreciated that resource conservation continues to be important as our population increases and our level of resources diminish. Therefore corrugated cardboard boxes, as is the case with many other materials, are generally recycled to reduce waste. Wax-coated corrugated cardboard boxes, however, are generally non-recyclable. Wax-coated corrugated cardboard boxes are commonly coated with a paraffin-based wax which is very expensive to separate from the cardboard within a normal re-pulping systems. Consequently, used wax-coated corrugated cardboard boxes (WOCC) are generally discarded in landfills. In view of present interests regarding conservation of resources and environmental consciousness, the ability to reuse such discarded material in a form of fuel would serve to reduce the demand for other types of fuels, such as oil, gas or coal, thus further conserving natural resources and preserving the environment.
Additionally, current log manufacturing machines destroy the corrugation within the corrugated cardboard which reduces the flow and permeation of wax and oxygen throughout the firelog which results in an incomplete and inefficient burning of the firelog.
Moreover, current log manufacturing machines produce firelogs with xe2x80x9ccold jointsxe2x80x9d at the intervals between punches or presses. These cold joints are also formed when the chips are compressed vertically within the structure of the log rather than disposed horizontally around the log in a circular fashion. Cold joints are weak links within the firelog that easily break up into multiple sections when any shear or tensile force is exerted upon them. The punch or press machine creates vertical arrangements of the chips within the firelog. When burned, the vertical chip arrangement causes chips to burn from the edge rather than from the side. Therefore chips of corrugated cardboard, so pressed into a log, are not allowed to open and expand with heat because of the vertical arrangement and the glued corrugations.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an artificial firelog manufacturing apparatus that provides the capability to recycle pre-waxed corrugated cardboard boxes into firelogs that are more structurally rigid and that burn more efficiently, using horizontally disposed segments, over that which is presently known in the art. The present invention satisfies those needs, as well as others, and overcomes the deficiencies found in currently known artificial firelog producing machines.
The present invention is an apparatus which converts standard wax coated corrugated cardboard sheets into artificial firelogs, or firestarter chips. The apparatus can therefore create firelogs from the wax-coated corrugated material that would otherwise be disposed of within landfills. Recycling this wax-coated material by means of this apparatus can create the equivalent of 600 million, 5-pound firelogs annually.
The invention produces artificial firelogs or firestarter chips, by first slicing waxed corrugated cardboard sheets into strips, and then cutting the strips into segments. Each cut segment retains its original corrugated structure and wax content. The wax-coated corrugated cardboard segments are then compressed and shaped longitudinally into firelogs which are generally cylindrical. The longitudinal orientation of the segments, whose corrugated structure has been retained, coupled with the memory effect exhibited by the compressed corrugated cardboard, results in a more efficient burn as the segments open up to increase airflow. Furthermore, by adding wax, or wax-like materials, any form of new, remnant, or recycled unwaxed corrugated cardboard can be processed into artificial firelogs and firestarters.
By way of example and not of limitation, the artificial firelog producing apparatus of the present invention generally comprises a cardboard strip cutting mechanism, a segment cutting mechanism, and a conveyor compression mechanism. The strip cutting mechanism employs a plurality of upper circular blades with teeth juxtaposed axially, and a plurality of lower circular blades with teeth juxtaposed axially such that the cutting edge of the upper circular blades overlap the cutting edge of the lower circular blades whose interaction cuts the waxed corrugated cardboard sheets into waxed corrugated cardboard strips. A segment cutting mechanism in the form of a cutting reel is disposed adjacent to the lower circular blade which then cuts the strips of waxed corrugated cardboard into segments. A conveyor compression mechanism in the form of an auger is positioned beneath the cutting reel and terminates in a log forming die for conveying and compressing the corrugated segments into a log shaped extrusion.
The upper and lower circular blades in the strip cutting mechanism effectively meter and slice multiple waxed corrugated cardboard sheets fed therein into waxed corrugated cardboard strips. The waxed corrugated cardboard strips are then fed through the cutting reel which cuts the waxed corrugated cardboard strips into waxed corrugated cardboard segments. The waxed corrugated cardboard segments are then fed into the conveyor compression auger for transport and compression into a log die. As the conveyor compression auger transports the waxed corrugated cardboard segments, the segments are horizontally disposed around the housing between rifling in a circular interlocking manner and are gradually compressed and forced into the log die. The log die compresses and shapes the waxed corrugated cardboard segments into artificial firelogs. Alternately the exit portion of the housing may be configured to perform the functions of the log die; however this precludes changing log forms without major changes to the apparatus. Firestarter chips are produced by bypassing the auger and log die.
Use of a conveyor compression auger results is a significant improvement over punch press-type machines, because the conveyor compression auger horizontally (based on the longitudinal axis of the firelog) flattens the waxed corrugated cardboard segments, as opposed to vertically flattening or crushing the cardboard segments which, as a result, form cold joints in logs produced from these piston style systems. The conveyor compression auger with its internal rifling also eliminates cold joints in the firelog by spinning the flattened chips horizontally and interlocking them throughout the log, thus eliminating the likelihood of the firelog breaking into segments on the fireplace grate. The horizontal (longitudinal) orientation also allows the segments to expand and burn off the exterior of the log, layer after flattened layer. As each flattened corrugated segment is being consumed by the flames, it expands from the memory effect in the corrugations which thereby allows the air to flow through the segment for a more efficient burn. Once a segment has been consumed, it falls away as the next layered segment starts burning. This burning sequence continues until the entire log has been consumed. Therefore the inventive apparatus retains the corrugation structure and creates a longitudinal segment orientation to provide for the manufacture of firelogs which do not easily break and which burn in a similar manner to genuine wood bark.
An object of the invention is to provide an apparatus capable of processing pre-waxed corrugated cardboard to produce artificial firelogs.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus capable of producing artificial firelogs more efficiently than firelog producing machines presently known or available.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus capable of reliably feeding, slicing and cutting waxed corrugated cardboard sheets and paper sheets into waxed corrugated cardboard segments and paper segments mix.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus capable of reliably slicing and cutting waxed corrugated cardboard sheets and waxed corrugated cardboard segments without the need of removing the wax or with the result of destroying the corrugations within.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus capable of producing artificial firelogs without the necessity of adding glue or wax.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus that produces firelogs without cold joints.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus that produces a firelog with horizontally interlocking arranged segments.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus wherein waxed corrugated cardboard segments are transported and compressed into an artificial firelog in which the segments are spun horizontally and disposed radially in an interlocking manner around the outside of the firelog, so that each sequential flattened layer of segments expands open when burning.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which is capable of producing firestarter chips.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which is capable of producing firestarter blends containing a variety of different materials.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus capable of producing a log having a outer covering which can be used as a post.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be brought out in the following portions of the specification, wherein the detailed description is for the purpose of fully disclosing preferred embodiments of the invention without placing limitations thereon.